When Adelle Stripe was 23, she got a job working on a sex chat line. She had answered an ad looking for women with no qualifications save for a clear voice and a self-assured manner. Callers would pay 50p a minute to speak to girls working in the small hours in the attic of a tatty office building. On arrival, Stripe observed staff at partitioned desks in jeans, jumpers and no makeup “fake laughing [on the phone] as though they are hosting the world’s greatest party”, along with the “sickly and overpowering” scent of Exclamation. That was the perfume worn by the manager, Viv – so strong it made everyone’s eyes water.
Stripe’s foray into the world of phone sex features in Base Notes, a literary voyage through her formative moments and the perfumes – some pleasant, some less so – she encountered along the way. Stripe is the author of Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile, a novel based on the life of playwright and screenwriter Andrea Dunbar; Ten Thousand Apologies, a tale of rock’n’roll excess co-written with Lias Saoudi of Fat White Family; as well as several volumes of poetry.
